Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_10193,size=175,left]Fifty years ago the Smithsonian embarked on a new venture to bring the culture on display in the museum to life with the first Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Then called the Festival of American Folklife, it set out to show that the crafts shown inside museums are also still alive and well across the country.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="310" caption="Group of Young Women in Costume During Arrival Reception For Tourists Near Plane at Airport, by Gerald James Holton, 1968, National Museum of Natural History, National Anthropological Archives."][/caption] I came across these photos of tourists on Easter Island on our site and their presence has kind of baffled me.
Description: As I write this crossover Preservation Week/MayDay post so close to Earth Day 2020 (the fiftieth anniversary), stunning news continues to break across the globe due to the coronavirus. Shining through the fog of worry, there have been surprising gains in a period of forced inactivity due to reduced emissions, such as record-breaking solar energy capture in Germany, and cleaner
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="368" caption="The first flight on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina with Orville Wright at the controls of the Wright Flyer, by Unidentified photographer, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives Record Unit 95 Box 25 Folder 41, Negative Number: 2002-12169."][/caption] On this day in 1903 the Wright Brothers
Description: Joan Gilder has been a volunteer with the Smithsonian Institution Archives' Preservation Team for two decades, and has worked to treat many of our collections in order to increase their lifespan and improve access. She has been an invaluable asset to the Archives since she first began, and we are thrilled to share a little more about her story.What did you do before you began